ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,297,862, issued on May 13, was assigned to NSK LTD. (Tokyo).

"Deep-groove ball bearing" was invented by Eri Watabe (Kanagawa, Japan), Hiroshi Ishiwada (Kanagawa, Japan), Kento Takeuchi (Kanagawa, Japan), Shigeki Maehara (Kanagawa, Japan), Takashi Kuramochi (Kanagawa, Japan) and Ahmadfirdaus Binabdulhalim (Kanagawa, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A deep groove ball bearing includes an outer ring, an inner ring, a plurality of balls, and a seal member. An axial cross-sectional width is smaller than a radial cross-sectional height, a thickness of the inner ring is greater than a thickness of the outer ring, and a pitch diameter of the...